Helen Haines asks the minister for aged care Sam Rae:

I thank the Member for the question and I acknowledge her genuine interest in ensuring that every old Australian can access safe, dignified high-quality aged care. In the last term of parliament, my predecessor the Minister for Communications asked for a new Aged Care Act with support from the Opposition and constructive contributions from the crossbench and parliament was able to come together on this work because of older people should be above politics.

These once in a generation reforms will deliver world-class aged care services to the older Australians who worked hard to build our country and whom we owe the very best care. Alongside these reforms, supported home which the members question refers, which is simplify in-home care arrangements and deliver a system that will help all the people to stay-at-home for longer.

Our population ages, demand for home care packages has grown fast. It is operating at record levels, we have more than 300,000 Australians accessing home care packages as compared with just about 100 and 50,000 people accessing them five years ago. Last financial year, the federal government spent over eight William dollars on home care packages programs as compared with just a billion 10 years ago.

We are delivering more care to more people than before and we will do it better. Minister Butler and I announced in consultation with older people, providers, that we will defer the act to the 1 November and that includes the introduction of support at home program. To make sure operational digital and legislative paces are in waste so that the new system is a genuine success. When support at home comes into effect, we will roll out an additional 80,000 packages in the first 12 months.

…As I said from the 1 November will roll out an additional 80,000 packages in the first 12 months. Until then, over the course of the period between now and November my number one priority is ensuring that older people continue receive the care and services that they need, and until November we continue to assign the packages each and every week in accordance with the National priority system.

I can assure the house that all the people who are assessed as being high priority will continue to receive the packages within a month. Mr Speaker, our government continues to deliver more care for more Australians and this brief deferral will give aged care providers more time to prepare the clients, support the workers and get the system is ready for these historic changes.